Aweek before Christmas 2014, I walked down Market Street in San Francisco with hot tea, warm biscuits and this offer to my neighbors experiencing homelessness: Record a short video message to a long-lost family member or friend, and I would try to deliver it for the holidays, directly or via social media.

Some said no. Some said no thanks but accepted the food and drink. And some said yes, including Jeffrey: “I’d like to leave a message for my dad, Harold. I intend to come home and see you again sometime. And my niece and nephew I never had. My sister had them after I left.”

Unsure what to do with Jeffrey’s video and without a phone number, I found two Facebook groups affiliated with his small hometown in Pennsylvania and posted it there. Within an hour, hundreds of people had commented on and shared the post. The story made the local news, and messages began to pour in from former classmates and neighbors offering help. Soon, Jeffrey’s sister Jennifer Gottshall-Gavitt was tagged in the post.

Gottshall-Gavitt and I spoke the next day, on Christmas. She said that Jeffrey had been a missing person for the past 12 years. A few weeks later, Gottshall-Gavitt spoke with her brother by phone. And earlier this summer, Gottshall-Gavitt traveled four days by train across the country to reunite with her long-lost brother for the first time in 24 years.

At first, this story felt like a miracle. But over the past 18 months, Miracle Messages (the social venture I created to expand upon this work) has helped dozens of homeless individuals reunite with their long-lost loved ones.

Ben reunited with his brother after 17 years apart and checked himself into rehab shortly thereafter. Isaac reunited with his family after 40 years apart and is now living with them again. And Alex walked into Homeward Bound, the San Francisco city agency, looking for his family, was referred to us, and within 24 hours boarded a bus to return home.

An astonishing 40 percent of all reunions through Miracle Messages have led to stable housing or living with family again. And just as significantly: 90 percent of loved ones we have reached have been excited to reconnect. The average time separated is more than 10 years; the average time to reconnect is less than three weeks.

Which begs a question: If family reunification can be so effective, if so many of our neighbors experiencing homelessness are disconnected from their social support systems, and if so many of their loved ones are apparently excited to reunite, why is this work not being done en masse?

The reason appears to be the same reason that, over the past 35 years, precious little progress has been made in ending this national tragedy: the homelessness industrial complex, and its progenitor, a grossly inadequate supply of affordable housing.

It starts with housing. Supportive-housing-first policies have proved effective in reducing homelessness in municipalities across the country. But we, in San Francisco and elsewhere, are orders of magnitude short of where we need to be. There is a national deficit of 7.1 million units of affordable housing for extremely low-income residents, plus an additional 400,000 units for households experiencing homelessness, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

To eliminate this deficit, every state in the country, on average, would need to create 150,000 units of low-income housing overnight. To describe it slightly differently, for every 100 households of extremely low-income residents and people experiencing homelessness across the country, there are 17 affordable and attainable units.

Instead of investing in housing, cities across the United States have played whack-a-mole: creating shelters and other temporary options, relying on emergency services to support the neediest individuals while enacting draconian antihomeless legislation to quell public outcry and funding a patchwork of service nonprofits to make up the difference. The overall number of persons experiencing homelessness has not decreased substantially in decades, despite tens of billions of federal, state, local and philanthropic dollars spent.

A video message from homeless man Dennis Alexander, who wanted to reconnect with his grandmother.

Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle

Homeless service providers tend to replicate the wheel rather than collaborate, creating a disjointed spectrum of care with varying quality and regular waste that begins to look a lot like animal control: mete out food, water, shelter and hygiene, but overlook the higher-order relational and emotional needs that make us human.

And, somewhere along the way, no one bothers to ask Jeffrey, Ben and countless others if they have any loved ones they would like to reconnect with or need any help to do so.

In May, the Atlantic Monthly reported that almost half of all Americans would have to borrow money to pay an unexpected bill of as little as $400, whether it be car repair, medical expense or anything else. It is hard to imagine what would happen to any of us if we lost our social support networks to rely on. The same goes for our neighbors experiencing homelessness: “I never realized I was homeless when I lost my housing, only when I lost my family and friends that supported me” is an oft-heard comment at Miracle Messages.

Everyone is someone’s somebody, and nobody should be defined by what they lack. If we can send a man to the moon, find cures for various types of fatal illnesses, and provide a safety net for our older citizens, surely we can end long-term homelessness as we know it. Even one person experiencing homelessness is one child, sibling, parent or neighbor too many.

Kevin F. Adler is the founder of Miracle Messages, a social venture that helps individuals experiencing homelessness reunite with their long-lost loved ones through social media. Donald W. Burnes is the founder of the Burnes Center on Poverty and Homelessness at the University of Denver and co-author of “Ending Homelessness: Why We Haven’t, How We Can,” (Points of View, 2016). People can volunteer or contribute to Miracle Messages at www.miraclemessages.org.

Affordable housing’s

heartbreaking reality

— there isn’t enough

529

The number of affordable housing units developed in San Francisco last year, representing a 30 percent decrease from 2014.

88

The number of years it would take to end homelessness nationwide at the current rate of progress, as reported recently by Joel John Roberts, CEO of Path Partners, which works to develop affordable and supportive housing.

17

The number of affordable and attainable units for every 100 extremely low-income and homeless individuals nationwide.

We need a much greater commitment to ending homelessness, not just providing services to homeless individuals.

1

Tie funding to ending homelessness, not units of service provided. Government leaders and nonprofit executives should have more leeway to experiment with what works and cut what does not, with ample discretionary funding for new ideas and program evaluation.

2 Require nonprofit service providers ask their homeless service recipients if they have any loved ones they would like to reconnect with, even if they do not know how to reach them directly. Some individuals will say no, some will say not right now, and not everyone has loved ones to reconnect with. But for Alex, Isaac and others who do, the impact can be life-changing.